Poet’s Intuition

Archive for the ‘Birds’ Category

Some close-ups of a brahminy kite at a bird park. I could never get a close up pic in the wild , although I did witness about 40-50 of them on a feeding frenzy once before, it was mainly videotaped. This kite was the highlight of the show, doing some fly-bys after the parrots/macaws did their segment of cute awesome tricks.

I went birding at the Brisbane Forest Park with Birds Queensland Assoc this morning. It was a fairly big group to start with and they were walking faster than the photo group , I pretty much lagged behind so I gave up taking pics early and tried to concentrate on spotting birds.

I thought I’d turn the table and see how it looks from a bird’s perspective to watch birdwatchers instead. (Not that I’m a bird).

As you can see, every birdwatcher must be armed with binoculars at least and a hat (it is rather hot now), as well as a backpack with some fluid to drink to avoid dehydration.

This is the only bird pic that turned out okay compared to the rest.

This is a dollar bird perched high up on a branch, one of the highlights of the trip.

(I also took pics of a kingfisher with a lizard in its beak but it was too far for a clear digital crop.)

Sometimes I would see a small flock of masked lapwings (Vanellus miles) foraging on the grass around the bikeway and try to capture a pic or two of them but they would fly off screeching or something when I try to come closer . The bird calls aren’t very nice to begin with, almost irritating in comparison with other birdcalls.

However, I managed to get up close with a masked lapwing in a park the other day as this one stood its ground.

It’s easy to see why.

She had a chick and she gave me real loud alarming warning calls that probably meant “Don’t even think about it! ” in human terms . Although I did get a little closer but not too close – I’ve been rammed on my legs by a mother hen once when I picked up some chicks and that wasn’t very pleasant so I really don’t want to find what this lapwing would do.

This chick is rather cute though, don’t you think? Check out the fluffy stuff around its neck!